Uncertainty
by Cheeseburger of Doom
Summary: [EyesxAyumu...sort of] There are some things that can't be explained by logic, no matter how much you try.


A/N: It's been way too long since I watched Spiral for this to make any sense. I never read the manga, I just saw the anime, which was a little confusing and had no real ending (which was quite fun, I must admit...because my sister went WHAT? WHERE'S THE ENDING?). Blah. This didn't turn out at all like it was supposed to...I'm not very happy with it. Grr. I really tried though, honestly. SO OOC. (I'm unhappy. So very unhappy. Grr!!!!)

****

Uncertainty

Ayumu did not really know why he was here. He had certainly not been invited, for his host did not seem to like him very much. At best, his feelings were that of indifference towards him. Ayumu did not much care for his host, either, all things considered; so why was he here?

His host finally appeared, looking cold and indifferent as always.

"Yes?"

Ayumu was not exactly certain what he should say. He had a million questions to ask, a million accusations to make...but why was he here? Why had he chosen this person, out of all of them? There were others who might be more willing to talk, others who had warmed to him far more than this one -- so why the hell was he here, of all places?

Maybe it was because he thought that this one would have the answers he sought.

"Tell me more about the Blade Children," Ayumu said. He was a strong believer in getting straight to the point, and he had a feeling that Eyes Rutherford was also not one for small talk.

Eyes gave him the cool stare that seemed to be his only expression. The silence stretched on. Ayumu was the one to break it.

"I got involved in all of this, and I still have no idea what's going on. I want answers."

"What is it that you want to know?" Eyes asked.

Ayumu was a little surprised. He had expected Eyes to refuse, not cooperate immediately. "I want to know who you are, what you are. I want to know where my brother is. I want to know why I had to get involved in all of this."

"I can't tell you any of those things."

There, that was what Ayumu had expected. It still made him angry. "Why not?"

"What if I said that I don't know? Would you believe me?"

"No," Ayumu said flatly. "You are one of them, so you must know."

"What I know would not be very helpful to you," Eyes said. "You're wasting your time here."

Ayumu shook his head slowly. "I'm not getting involved anymore. I'm not going to help you if I don't know what you are."

Eyes's shoulders moved slightly, in what could have been a shrug. "I won't try to convince you otherwise. It is your life, to do with as you will."

"Damn it." Ayumu moved closer to Eyes, as if getting closer would help to read his mind. "I just want to find my brother."

"So do we all," Eyes said.

"Why don't you know where he is?"

"He...disappeared."

"What was he to you?"

Eyes made that shrugging motion again. "I don't know."

"Do you know _anything_?"

Eyes stood, unblinking, expression never-wavering...it was unnerving. "I know many things, but nothing that would help you. Nothing that you really want to know."

"Why don't you tell me some of these things that supposedly won't interest me, then."

It was not like Ayumu to get angry this easily; usually he could let things slide. Anger was not something that he really expressed, it was just something that burned in his belly somewhere, and was never fully extinguished...

The Blade Children had toyed with him for too long, now, and he was tired of it. That was the source of his anger today; on top of the anger he'd already felt long ago when his brother had disappeared. His brother that he desperately wanted to beat, but could not...

"We've all lost something, not only you," Eyes said, coldly.

"What?"

"You think you are the only one suffering. Because I chose this path, I lost something, as well." Eyes looked at one of his palms. Perhaps there were memories etched on it. "We have all lost something."

"Why are the Blade Children killers?"

"It is our fate. It is apparently inevitable." There was actually emotion in that voice; something bitter, something that Ayumu knew well. "Of course, you can try to fight that fate and take a different path; or, you can embrace it. Like Kanone."

Ayumu knew how to put two and two together, and he could read between the lines; he suddenly realized what was going on here. "That guy was what you lost?"

"Yes."

"Why are you telling me this?"

Eyes looked up, and their gazes locked. "Because you asked," he replied. "You are right. You probably deserve some explanation, however, I have not much explanation to give."

Ayumu realized that this really had been a waste of his time. He paused in the doorway.

"What was my brother to you?" he asked again.

"I don't know."

"What was Kanone?"

"I don't know that, either."

"Then what am I?"

There was a pause. "Someone who refuses to leave. Someone who got involved in business that was not their own."

"I see."

Ayumu decided that he would not come back here. There were no answers to be had.

-----

Ayumu was surprised to see Eyes Rutherford, dressed all in black as usual with arms folded across his chest, waiting for someone outside his school. Their eyes met.

"Walk home by yourself today," Ayumu said to Hiyono, who was always at his side; "I have something to do."

"But Narumi-san --"

"Don't argue with me this time. Please." The tone of his voice convinced even the burr at his side to leave him be for a while. She was a nice girl, but she wasn't...well. She wasn't really his type. After everything that had happened, though, he owed her a great deal. If it made her feel better to be near him, then he could put up with it.

Eyes started walking when Ayumu reached him, and Ayumu followed.

"I have a question for you, now," Eyes said a little while later, finally deciding to explain his presence.

"Oh?"

"What am I to you?"

"Something unexplainable," Ayumu replied. That in itself was maddening; he hated things that could not be explained. No theory that he ever came up with could be proved, not if Eyes himself had no idea of the answer.

"Why do you help us?" Eyes asked.

"Because I do," Ayumu replied. "I don't really know why."

"Your brother said the same thing."

"Did he?"

"Yes."

"He also said that you would mean much more to us than he did," Eyes said, after a silence. "Maybe he planned to disappear from us."

"That would be like him, somehow." The brother that he could never surpass.

"He was right. You won't disappear, will you?"

"No."

"And you keep helping us, even when you have said that you won't. You really do mean more to us than he did. You have surpassed him in that, at least."

"Have I?"

"Yes."

Ayumu really did not know what to think of Eyes Rutherford. When Eyes leaned over and kissed him, suddenly, he did not know what to make of that either. The only thing he could do, really, was kiss back.

"You can come back," Eyes said, "But I can't give you any answers."

"Is it really that you don't know, or are you hiding everything from me still?" Ayumu asked.

Eyes made that small shrugging motion, that was not really a motion at all, and Ayumu sighed. This was how it would always be with them.

"I really don't like you very much," he said.

"I think that feeling is mutual," Eyes said.

They continued walking together, though there was not much conversation after that. The future before them was uncertain. Ayumu hated that. He hated it very much. He was a creature of logic, and none of this made sense.

__

I want to know what you are...

-----

Hiyono wanted to know why Ayumu disappeared, sometimes, and could not be found by anyone.

"I need time alone, sometimes," was his reply. He was not about to tell anyone that he went to see Eyes at his place, that sometimes they sat together for long hours, staring out of the window or that sometimes Eyes would play the piano for him and he would think of his brother, out there somewhere, laughing at him...or that sometimes, Eyes would kiss him, and he did not know what to think of that because not even his logic could explain it.

All he knew for sure was that he kept going there, and never asked any more questions about the Blade Children, because he knew he would get no answers.

-----

The first time Hiyono told Ayumu she loved him, he realized that he was very unhappy. He did not love her back, although he probably should, all things considered. They'd been through a lot together, and had risked much for each other.

Still. He couldn't help what he felt.

If he felt anything at all.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"I expected that." Hiyono smiled, as she always did, though he could tell she was really upset. "I didn't think you would return my feelings."

Clearly, she had expected him to return those feelings. He should have...

"I'm sorry," he said again, and he turned and walked away. He went to see Eyes, and they sat for long hours, staring out of the window at nothing. Ayumu wondered if his brother had ever had to reject anyone. Probably not; he'd gotten married, after all. Then he'd left her. Just disappeared.

"Why?" Ayumu wondered aloud. Why bother getting married if he was going to leave anyway? Was it because he couldn't refuse the girl? At least Ayumu had the guts to do that. Or maybe he had loved Madoka at some point?

Ayumu had thought he was in love with Madoka at some point. He remembered it quite clearly; Madoka's kind face smiling at him through the gloom. No one else had ever smiled at him like that before.

He realized now that he'd just been very grateful to her. It was just as well, because she was utterly devoted to Kiyotaka.

Wouldn't it have been funny if Ayumu had been able to win Madoka's heart? It would have been one way to win against Kiyotaka, but would he have cared?

"I don't know," Eyes replied, and even though he could have had no idea of what was going on in Ayumu's mind, Ayumu thought that he might know, anyway.

"Nobody does, do they?"

Eyes kissed him again. Eyes never said "I love you", because Eyes was honest.

-----

Ayumu tried asking the other Blade Children he knew the burning questions in his mind, but they did not know how to answer, either.

They had all lost something, just like he had, just like Eyes had -- and they did not even know why.

"Why did you choose to try and fight fate instead of embracing it? Why didn't you follow that guy, Kanone?" Ayumu asked one evening, as Eyes was playing the piano. His fingers paused above the keys.

"I don't know," he replied. There were a lot of things that Eyes Rutherford did not know. Ayumu really didn't know why he bothered asking. He sighed.

Then Eyes looked up and met his gaze, and gave him a real answer. "I have a conscience," he said. "I don't want it, but it's there."

Ayumu sat beside him on the bench, and Eyes let him play. Ayumu played the melody that Kiyotaka had always played.

__

I want to know where you are. I want to know what you're doing...I want to know why you left me behind.

-----

Ayumu forgave his brother, eventually. Forgave him for leaving, forgave him for being better at everything. Ayumu forgave his brother for being who he was.

Not that it mattered, since he never saw his brother again.

"Do you ever wonder what he's doing? The person that you lost." Ayumu was sprawled across Eyes' couch, looking at his ceiling, while Eyes did something or other.

"Yes."

"Do you hate him?"

"No."

There was a silence. There was always silence between them. Eyes nudged him over a little, and sat on the couch beside them. Soon, they were kissing; it always ended in kissing. It didn't make any sense, but then, life couldn't always be logical. Not everything could be explained.

Ayumu never said "I love you". It was not that he was too honest; it was simply because the thought never occurred to him. He had never felt loved, and he didn't know how to feel love. He might have had a chance with Hiyono, but he had pushed her away.

He didn't want to marry and then disappear. He was a lot like his brother in many ways, and in this, he wanted to be different.

How different was he though, really? Eyes kissed him as though he was thinking of someone else. Was it Kanone he thought of, or someone else...?

Well, that didn't matter.

The future stretched on and on uncertainly, and Ayumu resigned himself to it. That was just the way things were.

-----


End file.
